There are many types of devices that are enabled for connectivity to cellular or other wireless services and that can fulfill multiple purposes. One example is a vehicle with cellular connectivity; the vehicle Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) may enable this connectivity in the vehicle principally for the purpose of collecting data from the vehicle related to vehicle performance. At the same time, the connectivity could have other purposes, such as delivering information/entertainment (infotainment) content according to the preferences of the consumer using the vehicle (such as an owner, lessee or renter, referred to here for convenience as the “vehicle owner”), or allowing an insurance company to collect information about driving habits in order to offer discounts for those who drive safely. In the example for infotainment, vehicle owners would probably not be willing to fund the cellular connectivity for the OEM to collect data from the vehicle related to vehicle performance. Similarly, OEMs would probably not fund the cellular connectivity for vehicle owner's access to infotainment or other data-intensive applications.
Another example of such a device is a tablet (e.g. Kindle Fire™) which may be used to purchase and download content from a primary provider (e.g. Amazon). The content provider for the tablet (referred to for convenience as “the tablet content provider”) benefits from such purchases and therefore is willing to fund the connectivity as part of that purchase. However, the tablet can also be used by the person using the tablet (referred to here for convenience as the “tablet owner”) to access other content which is not provided by the tablet content provider, and the tablet content provider may prefer not to fund the cellular connectivity for this other content accessed by the tablet owner. As connectivity to cellular and other wireless services is not free, it is desirable to separate the cost and control of the connectivity depending on the user, directing traffic to the appropriate user's service provider and subscription and billing plan.
Accordingly, what are needed are systems and methods to address the above identified issues. The present invention addresses such a need.